Switching from crushed coral to sand.. (update)

Hey everyone just letting ya all no that we are currently in the process of changing out the cc for the sand.. We are adding the sand slowly but we are finding that no matter how slow or fast we go the water is still muggy.. We got about 3/5 of the cc out and we did it by sucking it out with a hose so it does not let out the ditraites as bad anyways.. We hope at least.. I will post a pic up tomorrow.. of the before the start of the change to what we have now.. I only have one q.. How long should we wait to do the next section..? We heard that 2 weeks would be good... Is that ok..

 

A wet and dry shop vac works well for sucking out the cc.
I don't have advice on how much to change out at once, bc I don't know if it's a new tank just cycled or 5 yrs old, and what size it is. I don't know what's in it, so I don't know what will be affected. Sorry, I just haven't read enough of your threads to know your situation. Maybe some else here that knows your tank better can answer that.

 

Understandable.. Well our tank is about 9months old. Its 26 gal.

We currently have:
2clowns
Yellow tail damsel
6 line wrasse
royal gamma
clown goby
hermit crabs
emerald green crabs
green star poylup
xinia tree
anthellia
as well as 25lbs of LR

We are running:
160wat compact florescent with lunner light. Lights are about 4months old
60gal canister filtration system
aqua c remora protein skimmer
3 little fishys phosphoban reactor

current peramaters:
78 F
Nitrates: 0
Nitrites: 0
Ammonia: 0
PH: 8.2
Salinity .025-6

I probably should have put all that inn at the beginning... Thats all the tests we have currently, we will be ordering a bigger test kit soon... Sorry about that... Hope this helps people in helping me!!

 

I would stay with your two week idea. Worst case scenario it takes you longer to get it all out, but slower equals safer!

 

I hope to do this soon Keep us posted with your progress

 

Hear are some pics of our progress... I know it doesnt look like much yet.. but its still the beginning...
Before the switch



After the switch


I will be adding more pics after each section we take out.. Thanks guys for all the help during this process.. Oh also, if you are just tuning in to my posts the GHA is a problem that is getting taken care of and that is one of the reasons why we are switching to sand... The GHA was worse...

 

Looking good

 

That would suck to do, sand looks much better IMO. What type of sand are you going to use?

 

Thus far I really like it too.. We are using agranated(sp?) sugar sand and its white.. In fact we just finished replacing another section of the cc with the sand.;D. I will post pics tomorrow.. The tank is too dark right now:-/... This is a very very long process but I know that in the end it will be totally worth it!!! I wish I would have known from the beginning that cc was a bad choice:-/... But you live and you learn and now I will be able to pass on my experience to some one who may not know...;D

 

Looks good - nice pics

I made the same mistake with the CC - I have to switch it to sand as well, it looks so much better